Marcel Granier is also an articulate opponent of Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, who Granier likes to call "el teniente coronel", for the last grade in the army Chavez held before trying the bloody coup of 1992.

The bad news reached Alderrete in Panamá City during the first two weeks in November of 1727, when Gerónimo García, the teniente of El Real de Santa María, wrote to him that a large band of the region's Indians had risen in open rebellion to the Spanish crown.